Even though many just assume that wine tasting is sipping, swishing, and swallowing – many are amazed to find that it’s actually a bit more. Wine tasting is more of an art, an art that is used to distinguish the taste of fine wines. Wine can be a tasty and refreshing drink – if the bottle was stored correctly and aged properly. Consider these wine tasting tips.

Wine Tasting 101

The art of wine tasting is indeed an art. Wine tasters do however, follow some general guidelines and rules that judge how great a wine is. These techniques can help you bring the most out of your wine, providing you follow them and know how to bring out the taste.

1) Look. The first thing to do with wine is to look. With wine, you can tell quite a bit about it by looking at it. You should always start by pouring the wine into a clear glass, then taking a few minutes to look at the color. As far as the color goes, white whnes aren’t white, but actually yellow, green, or brown. Red wines on the other hand are normally a pale red or dark brown color. Red wine gets better with age, while white wines get more stale with age.

2)Smell. Next, is the smell of the wine, which you should do in two steps. You should start with a brief smell to get a general idea of the aroma of the wine, then take a deep, long smell. This deeper smell should allow you take the flavor of the wine in. The more experienced wine tasters prefer to sit back a bit and think about the smell before they actually taste the wine.

3) Swish. Wine tasting begins with the swishing. The reason why wine tasters swish the wine around in their mouths is to get the taste. Both the front and the back areas of the tongue contain taste buds, although neither one has any distinct sensation in taste. Taste buds can detect food and liquid that is bitter, salty or sweet, without a problem. To get the proper taste from wine however, you need to swish it around in your mouth and allow your taste buds and sense of smell to bring out the unique and fine flavors in the wine.

When you have a cold however, the wine can taste very different. When tasting your wine, your sense of smell has a major impact on the taste. What many fail to realize, is that over 75% of our taste is due to our sense of smell. When we have a cold, our sense of smell is affected. Therefore, when eating or tasting wine with a cold, the taste will appear different. Wine tasters all over the world will tell you that tasting wine is more about a sense of smell than the actual taste buds.

4) Taste. Last but not least is the moment you’ve been waiting for – to taste the wine. To properly taste the wine, you should first take a sip, swish it around in your mouth, and then swallow. Once you swish the wine around in your mouth, you’ll bring out the rich and bold flavors of the wine. After swallowing, you’ll be able to distinguish the after taste of the wine, and the overall flavor.

Once you have looked at the wine, smelled it, and finally tasted it, you’ll be able to evaluate the wine from a taster’s standpoint. This is the easiest way to determine the quality of the wine, and whether or not it has been properly stored and aged.

As with all things in life – the more you taste wine – the better you will get at distinguishing the unique flavors.